Acquisition phonologique et morphosyntaxique du suédois et du français par des enfants bilingues simultanés. Le développement de phrases nominales et déterminatives à l’âge de 22-32 mois.
Author
Summary, in English
The present study examines the development of determiner phrases (DPs) by 22-32 months old simultaneously bilingual (2L1) children in French and Swedish. It aims to observe the relation between phonological and morphosyntactic aspects during DP acquisition of the target languages and compare it with existing descriptions on monolingual (L1) children. The latest research on children’s morphosyntactic acquisition suggests it is a bootstrapping process, where the first lexical productions are phonologically constrained and function words omitted due to lack of prosodic saliency.
It is debated whether children’s first lexical units follow a universal prosodic template or the prosody of the target language. Data from 2L1 children in languages of different phonological structure might provide information, where a lexical template following phonological features of the target language would mean different lexical units for each language (trochaic structure in Swedish, accentual arc structure in French). The results indicate a similar phonological development as described for L1 children, except for code switching by 2L1 children. The DPs with a syllable length exceeding the prosodic competence of the child are truncated and the determiner omitted, where truncation patterns seem to rely on phonological properties of the target language, not on a universal prosodic unit.
It is debated whether children’s first lexical units follow a universal prosodic template or the prosody of the target language. Data from 2L1 children in languages of different phonological structure might provide information, where a lexical template following phonological features of the target language would mean different lexical units for each language (trochaic structure in Swedish, accentual arc structure in French). The results indicate a similar phonological development as described for L1 children, except for code switching by 2L1 children. The DPs with a syllable length exceeding the prosodic competence of the child are truncated and the determiner omitted, where truncation patterns seem to rely on phonological properties of the target language, not on a universal prosodic unit.
Department/s
- French Studies
- Master's Programme: Language and Linguistics
Publishing year
2017
Language
French
Full text
Document type
Student publication for Master's degree (two years)
Topic
- Languages and Literatures
Keywords
- phonological development
- 2L1 acquisition
- French phonology
- Swedish phonology
- aCV
- proto-determiners
- truncations
Supervisor
- Jonas Granfeldt (Professor)
- Sophie Wauquier (Professor)